Antony Beevor, "The Battle of Arnhem"

so I'm very pleased tonight to introduce Antony beaver to politics and prose beaver is the best-selling author of 10 books including d-day the battle for Spain Paris after the liberation 1944 to 1949 Stalingrad the fall of Berlin 1945 and Ardenne 1944 he is the recipient of the 2014 Pritzker Military Museum & library literature award for lifetime achievement in military writing and was knighted in 2017 in his new book the Battle of Arnhem beaver tackles the history of Operation Market Garden the Allied plan to end the war by capturing the bridges leading to the lower Rhine and beyond besides chronicling all the details of this spoiler alert' ill-fated operation from the squabbling between the generals to the actions of the Dutch Resistance fever poses a question that has haunted military historians for decades could operation Market Garden ever have succeeded Ben MacIntyre UK times reporter and author of the spy in the trader Rights beaver tells a story that is more human and complex than what he calls the great myth of heroic failure a tale of vanity hubris occasional incompetence Heymann frailty and remarkable grit now please join me in welcoming Anthony Beaver thank you very much indeed ah right sorry at dawn on Sunday the 17th of September 1944 squadrons of medium bombers and mosquito fighter bombers took off for the Netherlands this was the overture to Operation Market Garden Field Marshal Montgomery's plan to jump the River Rhine at Arnhem and advance into Germany Montgomery was convinced that if he could get across the Rhine before General Patton to the south then General Eisenhower the supreme commander would have to give him absolute priority in supplies and command over American formations that morning more than 20,000 paratroopers and glider infantry queued for breakfast near airfields all over England the 82nd and 101st Airborne Division's had hot cakes and syrup fried chicken with all the trimmings and apple pie paratroopers from the British 1st airborne piled their missed tins with smoked haddock quite a lot of which ended up on the floor of the aircraft a sergeant remarked the first aircraft to take off carried each divisions pathfinders who had land on the drop and landing zones fight off any Germans and guiding waves of troop carriers at least 20 of the British Pathfinder Company were in fact German and Austrian Jews to conceal their origins in case of capture their dog tags and identity papers carried English names these Jews would fight ferociously taunting the Germans in their own language next to leave were the tug planes and their gliders carrying divisional headquarters and field ambulances as well as troops jeeps motorcycles and anti-tank guns finally it was the turn of the c-47 troop carriers with a deafening roar their engines suddenly speeded up and inside the strutted metal cave of the fuselage the paratroopers sat wedged in there aluminium seats bucket seats facing each other across the narrow aisle they avoided eye contact until they reached cruising height as the Armada crossed the North Sea the guards armored division prepared for its attack north from the Belgian frontier all the way to Arnhem and beyond the plan was to join up with the American hundred first airborne in Eindhoven that night then charged on to Nijmegen where they hoped that the 82nd airborne would have secured the huge red bridge over the river váh and from there it was a straight road on up to Arnhem and to general air cuts first British Airborne Division the Irish Guards group could see the Dutch border posts through their binoculars he had that strange feeling of imminent danger in the pit of the stomach in arnhem and the nearby village of oats to bake on this Sunday morning churches were not as full as usual congregations consisted mainly of women and children the men had dived under cover to avoid being taken hostage or shot in reprisal for a resistance attack on the viaduct bombs exploding in the distance made windows rattle then a sudden cut in the electricity supply may brought Church organs to a groaning halt as the lights went out the congregation in the Dutch Reformed Church in Oyster Bay guessed that this that these attacks signified the start of an allied invasion and spontaneously they stood up and burst into the national anthem forbidden by the Germans the hetfield helmers despite later conspiracy theories that the invasion plan offer brave operation Market Garden had been betrayed to the Germans in fact they were totally surprised Generalfeldmarschall moodle and his staff had to evacuate the tafelberg hotel in hasta bake in a rush when british paratroopers and gliders started landing only a few kilometers away to their West the only German unit ready for action in the area on that Sunday afternoon was an SS training and replacement battalion commanded by SS sturmbannfuhrer set craft he guessed that the objective was the bridge at Arnhem say he deployed his men to form a blocking line to slow the British advance along the two main routes into Arnhem for reasons explained here in the book operation Market Garden should never have been launched Montgomery had been determined to impose his plan on the first allied airborne army even though both General Eisenhower and the British sheaths of stars had agreed that the Air Force commanders should have the final say in airborne operations Monty thought they were frightened and refused to consult them in fact he even said even said that our chief marshal leigh-mallory was a gutless bugger he simply sent general boy browning back to England on the 10th of September to announce his plan but Brigadier General Williams of troop carrier command pointed out that the distances were greater than Browning's calculation so they could not now tow two gliders behind each c-47 the days were shorter so only one lift was possible on the first day this meant that half the force of each division from each division would had to stay behind to guard the landing zones and drop zones ready for the next lifts coming in the US air force officers also refused to attempt any coup de ma operations glider operations against the bridges because of the flat defenses furthermore the British drop and landing zones were at least 8 miles from their main objective the bridge at Arnhem which meant they lost all hope of surprise browning should have flown straight back to Belgium and said to Phil Martin said to Montgomery I'm sorry Field Marshal but we must reconsider the whole plan but browning was desperate to command the whole operation and feared that if he objected then major-general Mathieu be Ridgeway who was in any case far more experienced in airborne operations and he was will be given the task instead everybody thought that this was going to be the last operation of the war both Montgomery and browning had also fatally underestimated the German ability to react with unbelievable speed and ruthless prioritization neither of which were British virtues the German reaction was indeed fast and furious troops in the area of Arnhem did not wait for orders they set off on foot by bicycle or in vehicles as fast as they could towards the sound of battle and that very night tanks were rushed by blitz transports to the Dutch frontier from all over Germany by the rail system in a marked contrast parts of the British first airborne were distracted from the need to reach Arnhem bridge as rapidly as possible left turn internal features third battalion for example on reaching Ostra baked with its red brick roads began to experience embarrassing scenes of joy and generosity because the parachute helmet was round and unlike the usual British soup plate shape young eckle half of the Dutch Resistance asked if they were American not bloody likely Kenya fended reply were British pretty Dutch girls kissed the soldier's sweaty from the heat and the March and cheering civilians women and old men offered fruit and drinks including gin officers shouted orders that nobody was to stop or to drink alcohol younger Dutchman in fact immediately cos emerge from hiding offering and wanting to be allowed to join in the fight alongside them west and northwest of us to make crafts SS trainees were able to slow the advance to Arnhem because the 1st and 3rd parachute battalions stopped a deal with each little group or to take secures routes round them but craft lacked the men to block the southernmost route along the river and this was why most of leftenant Colonel John Frost 2nd battalion was able to slip through and take up positions around the northern end of the great Arnhem red bridge 64 miles to the south the Sherman tanks of the Irish Guards had been ambushed that afternoon the moment that they crossed the Dutch frontier in a matter of minutes 9 Sherman tanks were set ablaze a bird dose attack was needed to push them off the road so that the advance could continue Montgomery had rejected the warnings by Dutch officers that the single narrow road raised above the pole dalam flood on either side could be a death trap for the Germans to ambush also an extraordinary misunderstanding took place at dusk Colonel van de leurs brigade commander told the Irish Guards to spend that first night in Falcons fat when they were supposed to have reached Eindhoven by then general Horrocks agreed to this because they'd heard that the bridget's on north of Eindhoven had been blown up by the Germans but this was an astonishing decision by van Della's superiors the American engineers with the 101st airborne ATS on simply did not have the equipment to rebuild a bridge to carry tanks all the heavy bridging equipment was in the long column stretching right back by that 20 to 30 miles back into Belgium so there was an even greater need to push on that night through the night in fact to allow the Royal Engineers to get to work Frost's force at the bridge stood two before dawn the next morning Monday the 18th of September with spare magazines to hand and grenades ready primed they waited for the inevitable counter-attack a cold mist rising off the Rhine almost obscured the bridge read a member of the mortar platoon a nine o'clock just out of sight of the on the southern part of the bridge a column of some 20 vehicles formed up from hafstrom Fuhrer graveness reconnaissance battalion of the 9th SS Hohenstaufen Panzer Division Graebner raised his arm all the drivers began revving their engines he gave the signal and the vehicles accelerated forward fumer 8th wheeled armored cars led the way followed by open half tracks and finally Opel blitz lorries but they only had sandbags around the back as protection for the Panzer grenadiers on board a British Sigler up in the up in an attic overlooking the bridge shouted armored cars coming across the paratroopers expected the leading vehicles to blow up on the necklace of anti-tank mines said they'd laid across the road reason the four Pumas in front charge through untouched firing their 50 millimeter guns and machine guns they accelerated down the ramp and on into the town determined to make up for the slow start cross paratroopers reacted with every rifle Bren gun and Sten gun available the mortar platoon and the Vickers machine guns also opened up with devastating effect the anti-tank Gunners found their range and the next seven vehicles were hit and set ablaze some of those trapped on the bridge jumped from the pair opinion to the River Rhine and Graebner himself is said to have been killed when he climbed out of his armored car to try to sort out the chaos the smell of roasted flesh permeated the air for hours afterwards mixed with the stench of the oily black smoke from the burning vehicles once the furious firing died down the first parachute Brigade swore a war cry from North Africa were Muhammad rang out soon it was reverberating all around the bridge an officer recorded when the cheering ended all that could be heard was a factory siren howling away will we be getting paid overtime for this sir called a platoon Joker the whistles just gone Fross men would have been a good deal less enthusiastic at their initial triumph if they had known quite how slowly the guards armored division was advancing still under the astonishing misapprehension that American airborne engineers could repair the bridge at song the Irish Guards had what van Taylor himself called a leisurely start leaving Vulcan SWAT in yet 10 o'clock the next morning numerous delays during the day meant they were more than 24 hours behind schedule by the time they joined up with a hundred and first Airborne a timed tear from that evening Royal Engineers worked flat out throughout the night director Bailey Bridget saw on certain any rate the guards armored was able to continue their advance towards Nijmegen on the next morning but by then they were 36 hours behind schedule American paratroopers liberating Idaho and other towns in the North soon encountered Dutch revenge on those who'd consorted with the Germans during the occupation inve call an American paratrooper officer rate the collaborators were routed out of their homes for a long delayed retribution the girls were mostly rather young and since you're featured and they went under monster ibly to have their hair Shawn they seemed to accept it as an accepted fate as an expected fate and the Dutch crowds who watched the tonsorial administration of justice displayed none of the sickening and almost animal Glee that French crowds showed on similar occasions they were amused that was all in Eindhoven that doctor boy Anson saw a group surrounding two attractive women were about to have all their hair cut off the shara was clicking his scissors in anticipation when two American paratroopers from the 101st airborne with Thompson submachine guns break the circle stop that nonsense they ordered aiming their weapons then each one took a woman by the arm and led them off through the thong and into the town the frustrated Avengers could do little but mutter angrily and then elderly man standing next to Doc bonds remark quietly there are no fools these Americans they're looking for women with experience of life and if you ask me they picked the right ones many of the Dutch disliked these forms of revenge but others resented the way that British soldiers in particular tried to interfere generally speaking they don't have the same hatred of the Germans as we have a woman said I told them that they could not imagine what these years had been like for us the were in any case many worse things to worry about in Nijmegen as the 82nd airborne and the guards armored division prepared to fight their way in the waffen-ss resorted to arson as a weapon of war parties of marauding troops were sent into the town as far races ho blocks were set ablaze as the battle went on with Germans British and Americans firing the fires are taking on fantastic dimensions noted Alberta saurian in his Darian flames leap up to great heights wolves kayvyun rafters trash down in in-between of the cries of fleeing people and the sharp crack of rifles and machine gunfire it is a stampede nobody remains in the danger zone a few have salvaged the barest necessities such as clothing and blankets and in fear hooli is along to a safer place mothers hold their crying tots close to them desperate fathers carry the bigger children as well as hastily packed suitcases the anxieties they have been through can clearly be read on their faces as expected another attack on frost men the Arnhem bridge came at dawn SS troops forced the Dutch to leave houses in the vicinity one of the last sounds that Conrad who LeMond remembered before leaving his home for the very last time was the unearthly racket of an upright piano on the floor above being riddled with machine-gun bullets the defenders at the bridge had heard all the firing to the west where other battalions from the 1st Airborne Division were trying to fight through the 9th SS haunch dolphins blocking lines to get to them they had little chance of success the planners back in Britain had not spotted how the routes from the landing and drop zones came together in West Arnhem on the side of a steep hill near the central is above hospital providing an ideal choke point for the Germans to defend there were many grisly sites smoke and fire dark on the streets broken glass and broken vehicles and debris littered the road a paratrooper with the 1st battalion described the smouldering body of the left hemant ahead of them a tracer bullet had ignited the phosphorus grenade in one of his pouches and he'd burn to death though were also bizarre moments in the middle of the battle a Dutchman cept out of his house and asked two British soldiers in English if they would like a cup of tea as bullets flew around them a little further back along the route where they had come the bodies of british paratroopers lay everywhere many of them behind trees or poles a member of the telegraph poles a member of the Arnhem underground remembered with most officers killed or wounded a chaotic retreat were from Arnhem was soon underway men appeared out of the smoke of battle as the doctor put it running back in ones or twos like animals escaping from a forest farm the fighting at the north end of the bridge continued justice savagely as ammunition ran low Colonel frost issued strict orders to make every shot count an alien too far when the Germans were attacking during one charge a paratrooper was heard to yell at the enemy stand still you sods these bullets cost money for one or two the unbelievable strain of battle was just too much a sapper are suffering from combat stress walked out of the embattled school calling calling out we're all going to die everybody yelled at him to come back when he walked straight into the line of German far psychological breakdown in battle could take different forms ranging from catatonia to an uncontrollable shaking to combat exhaustion which could lead to bizarre behavior later in the battle in the so Nord Hotel one of the improvised hospitals in Oyster Bay a barely wounded soldier would take off all his clothes and walk around pumping his arms and making noises like a locomotive others faced death with a calm resignation which deeply impressed those who witnessed it one man shortly before dying from bullet wounds observed laconically and to think I was worried that my parachute wouldn't open that Wednesday one of the greatest examples of collective bravery took place just west of Nijmegen when major Julian cooks battalion of the 82nd airborne paddled across the river Val under heavy fire in the movie a bridge too far major Cook was played by Robert Redford I was like the surprised in an American archive to find a letter for a major cook protesting strongly at being portrayed by Robert Redford I'd thought miss men would mean robber when the trucks bringing 26 assault boats eventually arrived the paratroopers were appalled to find that they were just canvas on flat bottomed wooden frames the order was given and the paratroopers and engineers shouldered the it's like coffins with their outside hand carrying weapons they ran over the top of the Dyke then down the slope slipping and sliding in the mud they struggled to get their boats straight in the water and clamber aboard Henry keep who'd been an ottoman at Princeton was counting 1 2 3 4 but their efforts were all over the place then the Germans began firing in earnest with small arms machine-gun fire 20 millimeter flak guns and artillery some bits were literally blown out of the water well the small arms fire coming from the northern bank made the river in the view of somebody looked like some sort of seething cauldron in everyone's ears captain Henry keep wrote in a letter to his mother was the constant roar a bursting artillery shells the dull wham of 20 millimeter or the disconcerting ping of rifle bullets there was also the unmistakable thwack whenever a bullet struck a body the arm muscles of those paddling screamed with the strain but at last we reached the other side we climbed over the wounded and dead in the bottom of the boat and waited to shore we're behind a small embankment we flopped down gasping for breath safe for the moment from the incessant firing they began to advance in an extended skirmishing line many hundreds of yards wide they cursed and yelled at each other as they advanced firing their machine guns and rifles from the hill many times I have seen troops who are driven to a fever pitch keep road troops who for a brief interval of combat are lifted out of themselves fanatics rendered crazy by rage and the lust for killing men who forget temporarily the meaning of fear it is then that the great military feats of history occur which were commemorated so gloriously in our textbooks it is an or inspiring sight but not a pretty one Staff Sergeant Clarke fuller described his own experience of this sudden metamorphosis from intense fear to a sense of invulnerability when we finally got to the opposite shore I experienced a feeling I'd never felt before all the fear the past 15 or 20 minutes seemed to leave me to be replaced by a surge of reckless abandon that caution to the winds I felt as though I could lick the whole German army the courage and the aggression of the American paratroopers prompted one of the guards officers supporting them to observe I think these paratroopers must be fed on dynamite or raw meat the massacre which followed as opposed fleeing and surrendering Germans were shot down was a shocking sight 267 bodies were recovered simply from the red bridge alone where many of them were trying to give up leftenant Colonel Kristofferson the commanding officer of the Sherwood Rangers whose tanks supported the 82nd airborne light Brigadier General Jim Gavin and all mostly and considered his paratroopers to be the best infantry they'd ever worked with but maybe on some occasions Kristofferson noted in his diary they were too tough especially in the treatment of their prisoners whom they seldom took I shall never forget seeing a jeep full of American paratroopers driving along with the head of a German pierced with an ounce steak and tied to the front the spectacle wants me still a toaster baked the German and Austrian Jews in the British Pathfinder Company on the north side of the perimeter could be just as pitiless they too gun down young German soldiers with their arms up trying to surrender and during a slight lull after another attack members of the Pathfinder company was surprised to hear music playing through the trees a German loudspeaker van was playing in the mood stayed in position all day a Pathfinder rating his dairy plenty of motoring and sniper fire sir made myself a little trench got another sir when a bunch of Jerry's came right out into the open front of us also several Possible's heard a mobile speaker in the distance funny shooting Jerry's - dance music british paratroopers could certainly also be tough a severely wounded officer from the first parachute battalion was lying in an aid station next to me he recorded was one of our chaps with his fingers blown off coolest smoking a cigarette held between the bloody stumps of his fingers somehow summed up the airborne soldier I thought for civilians still in Osterberg the constant German bomb Bob was terrifying people in cellars lay curled up underneath the mat their mattresses anxious mothers made their children wear sauceman's on their heads like helmets but bravery and fighting skills were not enough when the lightly armed paratroopers lacking ammunition faced royal Tiger tanks finally on the night of the 25th of September after nine days of fighting the pitiful remnants of the British 1st Airborne Division were withdrawn across the River Rhine British sappers and above all the Canadian engineers of the 20th and 23rd field squadrons with our storm beds achieved miracles despite out four motors becoming flooded in the heavy rain the senior British engineer officer ordered operations to see is at zero 545 when he became evident than any further attempts to bring off men would be suicidal for the boat crews after the last boat departed several hundred despairing men still remained on the north bank of the Rhine as the Germans moved in on the survivors huddled on the muddy Shore a parish soldier was appalled when he saw four british paratroopers stand up in a tight circle linked their arms together then one of them pulled the pin from a grenade which he did not drop there was an explosion in the four male four men fell he said that morning the 26th of September those who had not managed to get away were rounded up by triumphant SS panzergrenadier the Germans were utterly bemused by the British compulsion to joke even in defeat a tough glider pilot sergeant faced by a tense SS panzergrenadier punching a rifle to his chest calmly took a small mirror from his pocket he examined his growth of beard and then with an absolutely straight face he asked his captor whether there happened to be a dance in town that night while British prisoners made the best of a bad job this was a very dangerous time for all the Dutch civilians who had helped the Allies the Germans were determined to identify them they ordered the population of to bake to leave their homes immediately and along the road the SS lined up the German prisoners released from the Hartenstein tennis court to look for any civilians they could identify who had helped the British some members of the Dutch SS took great satisfaction in yelling at a group of women you see you celebrated too soon one of the women forced from their homes to which the Germans set fire rate philosophically just for a moment I look behind me flames and smoke billow from the house we feel separated from it but we still have our lives the Dutch trapped behind German lines in the northern Netherlands had very little to joke about some 3600 had been killed in the fighting and many thousands more severely injured when Field Marshal Montgomery had tried to pretend that operation Market Garden had been a success because they had got 90% of the way to Arnhem Eisenhower's Deputy Air Chief Marshal Tedder remarked angrily one jumps off a cliff with an even greater with the Newman higher success rate until the last few inches the assistance of the Dutch to the Allied Airborne Division's and the national rail strike which they called to hinder the arrival of German reinforcements provoked a terrible Nazi vengeance with food supplies cutoff to the main cities during what became known as the hunger winter of 1944 to 1945 almost 20,000 died of starvation some estimates go much higher since famine weakens resistance to disease although the Dutch had say many reasons to be bitter about this disastrous plan their generosity to Allied troops at the time and ever since towards the airborne veterans has been extraordinary I was back in Arnhem anos debate in September at the time of the anniversary houses were decorated all the houses almost were decorated with flowers with flags bearing the Pegasus symbol of the airborne and triumphal arches had been erected to welcome the veterans and each year all of the schoolchildren lay flowers on the graves of those who died there and I think it's one of the most moving legacies of the Second World War thank you very much and now there are the two microphones if anybody wants to ask any questions could you please line up what am I going to be let off I can't believe it thank you sir how many how many in-person interviews did you have when you write a book like this and how long a period of time did you take to do it well three years but I didn't do any personal interviews because I'm afraid the answer is that it's very very hard I think for people to any of the veterans ready to keep a clear mind on what happened many of them and once found this in so many cases and I particularly found this in all whether German interviews Russian Red Army's veterans and so forth they've read so many books on the subject but they then filtered their experiences through often through what they read and this is perfectly natural sort of human reaction the last time I ever did do interviews was actually in in Russia for the Berlin book was then there were still lots of people still alive who really did have pretty clear memories of what had happened now it wasn't a question of trying to are some details of dates or anything like that I mean that's particularly unfair but they could still come up with some very very interesting stuff and intriguing Lee Anne Applebaum who's an old friend was also researching her Gulai book at the same time and we would occasionally have dinner to compare notes this was back in 1994 and and I remember said to me and she said does this happen to you is he just cuz I'm a woman but you know they tell me to sit down don't interrupt and they'll tell me what happened I said then I promise you I did I've had the same thing from the Red Army soldiers too and but we both agreed actually that the best witnesses of all were the women and I was rather rather intrigued by this we weren't quite sure why but it was on the way back in the metro to where I was staying in North Moscow but it suddenly occurred to me of course the men have been so humiliated in the Red Army they'd had to crawl out into no man's land her strip their comrades of their uniform so that these could then be handed over to fresh troops coming up and now they were in command of history here were foreign historians coming to interview them and they immediately put themselves in the central event oh yes I remember marshal true cough he came up with all mr. drew cover comes up to ask their advice I mean you know it's it's amazing the winning on the other hand had had that kept their eyes open and their mouths shut and they were totally reliable there was no doubt about that I mean Luba and I spent a long time down in Volgograd talking to them but since then no I haven't done any any real interviews since whatever it was since 2000 basically yes some questions quickly how accurate was a bridge too far and secondly though maybe more importantly why did I could prove this a bridge too far is quite a lot better than most war movies I have certainly vented my frustration and anger in fact my wife will never accompany me to a war film she'll know I'll be grinding my teeth all the way through at the inaccurate seas and I'm afraid darkest hour which was ghastly because I'm all there was a brilliant performance by Gary Oldman based the scriptwriter and the director should have been shot for offenses against history it was outrageous what the way that they distorted and changed things which they thought was good for dramatic purposes but no I mean there were a lot of things which I think were a bit inaccurate for example I don't think Cornelius Ryan ever worked out why there was that terrible weight and delay of the guards armored division there was not nearly enough about the suffering of the Dutch civilians which i think is something which has developed if you like over the last 20 years that military history has now really become the history of war as the wonderful professor Sir Michael had to whom we will bow down has rightly argued ie one should be certainly including the suffering of the civilians caught up in these sort of battles but the reason why Eisen ha really did not interfere was partly the accident he wrecked his knee at Granville when the airplane landed landed in the sand on the beach and he in fact when he came on that fateful day of the 10th of September he flew to Brussels and Montgomery met him in the came climbed up into the aircraft and that was a time when Montgomery behaved abominably by sort of waving papers around saying this is absolute rubbish it's absolute balls or whatever and these were the signals he'd had from Eisenhower and Eisenhower had to calm him down and say steady on Monty he put his hand on his knee anyway unfortunately weren't sending me to problems in those days and had said steady on Monty you know you can't talk to me like that I'm your boss but the real problem the real problem was that I think that the American system which was funny enough closer to the German system of hugs tactic ie you gave an officer a particular mission and then it was up to him how he carried it out and in this particular case he was giving Monty the first Allied airborne army the American Airborne Division's as well as the British ones to bolster what had been called Operation comet and then it was bolstered up into operation Market Garden with three airborne three-and-a-half-hour borne divisions and basically therefore it was up to Monty so Eisenhower didn't even really know what the plan was at that particular time now everybody was also suffering from victory euphoria the that terrible thing of historical parallels were being made with the German the collapse of German Army in August 1918 and as a result of remember on the Eastern Front Operation Bagration all the way across Belarus right up the river this and the gates of Warsaw in Normandy the destruction of the semi destruction if you like of the Army is there people had actually misunderstood the 20th of July bomb plot against Hitler the British and the Americans tended to think that any army which has attempted to blow up their own commander-in-chief must be in a state of disintegration but in fact it was the failure to blow up Hitler which actually meant that they were always going to go on into these he was dead because by then the Nazi Party the SS and Hitler had total control over the German army says were major misunderstands in that particular time I think anything you can really blame Eisenhower for that particular point was not having put enough pressure on Monti over opening the port of antwerp the British had captured Antwerp but because after this sort of huge - all the way from the Seine right up to the shoulder they didn't proceed onwards - while they were doing their vehicles and maintaining them and all the rest of it that was the missed missed opportunity when if they pushed across and pushed on they could have actually trapped the rest of the 15th army in 15's German army and they could have secured the entry to the Port of Antwerp so that was the nature mistake there but I afraid you know one can say that the trouble was that Montgomery was not really listening to anybody and I don't think even Eisenhower really would have been able to do very much but the American system was as I say to you know instruct the guy on what his overall mission was and then it was up to him on how he was going to do it no sir so it goes without saying that World War two is an extremely massive conflict with incredible Germans persona and a lot of impressive chapters and for that for many years all over the globe what is it about the final year of the war in Europe that especially fascinated sue to the point where you've written more books about this particular period in this region than any other including her most well the last year of the war more people died in the last year of the war than the whole of the rest of the war I'm on tends to underestimate that I mean it was the large world majority of course being civilians I'm afraid I mean the second world war was one of the most horrific or was the most horrific in in history because it was the first time that far more civilians died in it than than soldiers but that an end of the war I think is important if one's going to understand the Cold War and the period afterwards I mean that was interesting on the whole business of Yalta and many of their conspiracy theories about Yalta and all the rest of it it wasn't so much Yalta it was much more the Tehran conference which established the strategy for the war yalter in a way put the seal on it but the the real question was on the way that the Cold War developed was actually it all went back to 1941 I mean Stalin had been so shaken to his core by the surprise German attack in June 1941 that he was determined that Russia and all the Soviet Union should never be taken by surprise again say it was his determination at Yalta to impose total control over Central Europe which was bound to lead to the Cold War and it was mainly his obsession with Poland he hated the poles because it was his humiliation in 1921 in the Polish Soviet War and especially because it was marshal Tukhachevsky who was the one who would say furious not surprisingly guess who was the first marshal to be eliminated later on in 1936 with the purchase and Stalin was never never never gained her forgive the pose so this was the problem really at Yalta and it was also a question of the way that the poles suffered more than anybody else in a way at the end of the Second World War and of course they played the role at Arnhem and general sosabowski their commander was shamefully treated by the British generals afterwards partly because or mainly because actually it's awesome Bosnia right from the start have pointed out that operation Market Garden was going to be a disaster right from the start he kept saying but the Germans general the Germans two browning and browning refused to listen you know oh come on he said you know the British and the poles together we can easily overcome them and all the rest of it in them totally complacent way which exhaust break it's also boskie and when Ostrowski was proved completely right by the disaster at Arnhem they took it out on him and it's quite interesting my polish publishers I'm going to Warsaw in January am I you know why they always send me there in January but anyway my polish publishers have sent me the design for the jacket and of course there saw Sabarsky surrounded by parish paratroopers and you assume from that the whole of operation Marty garden was in Italian polish operation but I don't blame them frankly in the circumstances anyway if you had to rank them who would you say were the most skilful generals on each side in the war well general Field Marshal man Stein was always regarded as the great strategist on the German side and I think that's absolutely right I'm afraid the Allies at the end of the war was so admired man Stein so much that they tended to wave a look a lot of the way that his troops and even in some remarks that he made were caused appalling killings of Jews in the areas of his armies and yet manche time was supposedly partly Jewish himself his real name was Levinsky not man Stein modle was a brutal commander but was known as Hitler's farman because he could always sort out a disaster and yet it was modle who made the biggest mistake on the German side in operation Market Garden because he refused to blow up the bridge at night megohm I mean this is another one of the strongest reasons in a way of why the plan should never have been allowed to go forward because they should the British should never have counted on that bridge not being blown up and if it had been blown up and this was the big redbridge in the hood of europe over the widest and the most fast flowing part of the river rhine there was no chance of them ever getting to Arnhem on time if that had if that had been blown so Moodle made that mistake but otherwise he was a very effective and brutal commander and I would have thought he was fast anyway far superior to Rommel in a particular way Rommel was I'm Fred fantasized by the British in Ted becoming sort of the desert fox and all the rest of it you won't hear that opinion from Germans at all on the Allied side yes I mean they were funny enough on the on the naval side particularly you know holds in nip Nimitz of course in the in the Pacific then and slim was the best British general by far I think the way mine gets to Europe pattern well you know pattern should any have been let out of a cage in war and basically kept our kept away from anything to do with peacetime soldiering or be anything pista I might have thought but he was brilliant when it came to a sort of great charge across large areas of like in France and we'll rester it but at the same time as he admitted in his own as he admits in his own Diaries here out of impatience and sort of an frustration he could cause huge casualties to his own troops when he hit the fortresses at Metz and later in the Ardenne counter-offensive he did admit that out of impatience he he made definitely sort of the wrong decisions there but I mean his re organization of Third Army during the Battle of the our day and was one of the most astonishing staff achievements of the whole of the Second World War and isn't it out about that on the British side well Montgomery I'm Fred Montgomery's son from time to time used to say to me Rin rather sad voice you weren't very kind about my father in your last book and I'm afraid that was rather true but the trouble with Montgomery as I've said in the yard end book was actually the montgome I was certain convinced had high-functioning Asperger's and this seems to have been sort of confirmed I mean I only suggested that as tension to live live because one can only do that but he did explain why he was incapable of taking any advice of seeing how other people saw him and in fact funny enough the BBC put me in to discuss it with Montgomery step grandson who grown up with him and he said he's already was there any explanation really for Montgomery's strange behavior and then carrots you always think you've come up with something original and then somebody pointed out not long afterwards that actually short talk well a few years ago there was a professor of psychiatry at Trinity College Dublin who'd written a large paper on Montgomery and Asperger's so I think it does explain quite a bit in that way of why he behaved as he did but there was a problem actually sometimes with commanders in the Second World War nobody had ever heard of them at all until suddenly the war started and then they started being treated like film stars and with most of the sort of reasonably sensible ones I mean this made no difference but with several of them obviously MacArthur being one of the worst examples in Italy I'm General Mark Clark who has served says he had 15 members he had 50 officers and soldiers in his PR team making sure that the journalists could any take his photograph from his best profile he was rather proud of his sort of name Raymond knows apparently but also he was obsessed with the capture of Rome and his staff officers started referring to him as Marcus Aurelius clockers which I was father a great name and but I'm afraid Montgomery was another one of those ones who fell for the new idea in a way that somehow charisma was a new form of leadership but the problem was of course that all of these war correspondents and newsreel teams could any focus on the commander because in those days there wasn't any embedding of course or anything like that and they weren't allowed to talk about any of the operational activities or plans because that might be giving information to the enemy and so everything was focused on the commander and that was that was why I could either one way or the other but anyway now I'm sure they're our trusted admin was another good general on the American side and so forth I think I'm afraid to say I think Bradley was rather sort of overrated in many ways Eisenhower was I think underrated and particularly I'm afraid I'm totally unfairly by the British because when it came to some of the key decisions he was usually a bright and he was certainly right about for example the advance towards Germany Montgomery's obsession that he could do this what he called to let air attack on Germany through the north I think that it was Patton who said stiletto he said you mean butter knife and because in fact as Patton pointed out and actually as gerrant German generals agreed Montgomery was following the route across Holland and into Germany that way across the widest rivers in Europe and of course the whole network of canals in in Holland and as the German generals in British captivity were all observing schools they were following operation Market Garden with great fascination but as they observed you know the traditional line of advance is where pattern is through the Czar well browning had been certainly a very brave general browning had been very brave in the First World War and but he'd had very little airborne experience because of course he'd been part of the British Army back in Britain waiting for the invasion of Europe and so he was desperate in fact basically to command the airborne corps for operation Market Garden himself and the fact that general Ridgway who had had service in with the airborne with the American Airborne Division's in North Africa and in Sicily and in Italy and of course in d-day the fact that you know he should have actually been put in charge of the whole operation but this was the problem or Eisenhower saying that have joint command in so forth where if you had an American commander then you had a British deputy commander and say browning was there for the deputy commander but browning I'm afraid was suffered definitely from vanity there's no doubt about it but it was very tragic in a in a way because he did realize that I think his responsibility for the disaster at Arnhem that he had refused to listen and this is a problem of military culture he'd refused to listen to all of the warnings that he being given General erkut the rather unfortunate commander of the British 1st Airborne Division at Arnhem had actually come to him at the end and said sir I've carried out the planning as you ordered but I must warn you that it's going to be a suicide operation general Gale who had commanded the 6th hour born in Normandy knew perfectly well that he was going to be a disaster and went to see browning about it and browning said you mustn't say anything because that'll undermine morale well it rather and rather underlines the problem about sort of you know when I say a politician or a very senior commander comes up with a particular plan it's rather hard for the subordinate commanders then to point out that actually it's a very bad idea indeed because either they sound sadly frightened or at least unenthusiastic and this was very much I think the problem here with Operation Market Garden that they were not listening to the warnings that were being given to them thank you thank you for your books fascinating one good question what could be the consequence of Market Garden of achieving 90% of the objectives did the Allies lost initiative to regain it only after the Battle of the Bulge well they were basically stuck in what was called the bit over which was the very boggy area basically below sea level most of it between the river váh at Nijmegen and the lower Rhine at Arnhem and basically this was a useless bit of territory which they had then had to defend and they were simply bogged down there Montgomery should have actually crossed at Veysel if he was going to attempt to at that particular point and this is what Dempsey and others have wanted him to do but he had his own personal reasons why he wanted to go north or not to go east if he felt if he went north then he would be able to force Eisenhower to bring American formations up to support him and then he would get the command over the American formations which was of course his plan the other problem also was that sort of you know he was able to insist on the attack at Arnhem purely because the v2 rockets had just started landing in London and so he could this was his reason saying the government in London insists that I go north because that's where some of the rocket sites are and as a result that sort of a the ninety percent business they just sat there throughout the whole of the winter without really being able to do anything it was one of the wettest coldest winters of other for a very long time so yes I'm afraid actually Tedder proved to be right oh right okay hang on weibo yes i finished the book last night hang on first yes yes yeah I finished the book last night it's a stunning bit of writing thank you it was excellent I have a question not about in this book but I've read somewhere that El Alamein was where Monte made his reputation and somewhere I read that the whole plan of the battle at El Alamein he'd inherited from Arkin black because he was appointed just before the battle I'm wondering if you subscribe to that yes I do but if you changed Alamein for Alam halfa Alem halfa was where he managed to block Rommel completely and actually it gave him a 30 bloody nose and that was entirely Auchinleck plan Alamein was actually his plan and frankly it wasn't actually a terribly good one I mean he just managed to batter the Germans into submission largely thanks to the desert air force commanded by Cunningham on New Zealander and Monti of course never allowed him any credit whatsoever which is one of the reasons for the very bad relations between the Royal Air Force and and Monti and also the other fact was by then Rommel was completely out of fuel and ammunition because thanks to ultra intercepts the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force were sinking all all of Rommels supply ships and they couldn't understand why they were all being sunk so Mont Rommel was in a position ready to fight properly at Alamein all of this was kept quiet because for reasons of British morale Alamein had to be turned into a fantastic victory but actually Monti got it rather wrong I mean he thought that by this feint in the South that he'd be able to break through in the north will in fact the Germans weren't taken in by the famous feint in the south and they reinforced the north and it was a very nasty battering heavily a battle of attrition up there in the north thank you how would you further assess the role of the British airborne troops it rather depended on which brigade funny enough I mean the first parachute Brigade was experienced they'd had quite a bit of fighting experience in North Africa and in Sicily Hackett's brigade even though I mean heck it was a very brave man indeed and a very very good leader a ferocious man I knew him a bit and but his his troops had simply had no experience whatsoever I think that they I think that some of the criticisms of the first Airborne Division were unfair there's no doubt about it some of them were justified in terms of only Frost's battalion the second battalion were the ones which really pushed through and didn't allow themselves to get distracted by some of the little groups of bases of resistance but you know obviously it was sort of a mixing in a particular way but I mean there's no doubt about it and I said this was the problem really with the British Army incredibly brave in defence not so good in attack and I think that was really the difference between the American now born which was absolutely ferocious in attack which is perhaps what paratroopers should be rather than in defense because by the time paratroopers get into defense they're in a very bad way already oh sorry one more right I guess sorry sorry one question yep in a in the large book on the world war two they'll hold volume you kind of suggest that Churchill and the British were right to postpone the invasion of Europe yes definitely okay so I wanted to but of course you know the Americans always wanted an earlier they do and they it would have been disastrous if they had I mean even even in may even at the beginning of May the report on the American divisions in in Britain ready for the invasion was devastating that they're simply not ready to fight and it was only because of intense training during that last month and the fact that d-day was postponed from the beginning of May to later did that happen there the real reason I mean invasion in 43 I mean let alone 42 would have been mad because a they were Luftwaffe had not been broken you needed to have the back of the Luftwaffe broken in the bombing in the strategic bombing offensives and it was only when they brought in the most Mustangs and others with the long-distance fuel tanks and all the rest of it that they're able they were able to knock out the bulk of the Luftwaffe and the other question was the Battle of the Atlantic and the submarines not a single submarine managed to get into the channel largely thanks to RAF Coastal Command and the the screen that they had and this was actual total humiliation Admiral donitz who was the u-boat commander that them didn't manage to do that but I think any attempt beforehand would have actually knocked the allied position back in a really serious way I mean it was still pretty because of the weather and all the rest of it it was still a nip and tuck operation as it as things went even in June 1944 I mean if if Eisenhower had postponed and he took a video fed a brave decision indeed on that particular day then they would have ended up in the worst storm in the channel in the last 30 years and you can imagine what that would have done you know then you are into the counterfactual area of history which I try to avoid and lead to leave to Neil Ferguson and Andrew Robinson [Applause] you

Channel: Politics and Prose

Views: 17,123

Keywords: Antony Beevor, World War II, The Battle of Arnhem, Politics and Prose

Id: _Ywp0Ak7Qs4

Length: 60min 56sec (3656 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 24 2019